David White – Build better businesses with BusinessFIT SA

BusinessFIT’s purpose is to help business leaders and entrepreneurs build better businesses by guiding them in implementing a defined quality assurance and sustainable development process to support their enterprise foundation and intention.

?Traditional business development models tend to focus more on profit creation, which is, of course, an essential component in organisational success. However, profit is an outcome and not the process that drives value creation through operational excellence and client retention.

BusinessFit’s scientific approach to developing productive, compliant, engaged, and sustainable businesses helps to create a common language for the enterprise and its people through defining outcomes, intentions and measurements. The BusinessFit app and quality assurance process has proven itself as a tool that improves an enterprise’s likelihood of financial and operational success. BusinessFit’s approach identifies where each enterprise is in its own evolution and development and guides the organisation in its progression towards reaching maturity and achieving its desired balance and outcomes.

Supporting ideas and vision

Organisations are normally founded by an entrepreneur who identifies an opportunity in the market. This then forms the basis of the idea and intention carried forward. The entrepreneur applies business mindedness to the idea and intention and develops a plan or strategy to reach intended customers, operational and financial expectations. In most instances, entrepreneurs bring purpose, passion, and core competencies in developing a product or service. Take for example an entrepreneur who has skills to create life size sculptures of elephants and may not necessarily have developed business skills to define the product’s specific target market, managing cash flows, attract and retaining suitable staff to help in producing the artwork, or understanding of logistical requirement to ship products to foreign destinations.

At BusinessFit we want entrepreneurs to acknowledge that their core competency is critical to the success of the enterprise, but also to recognise that their creative contribution is the idea or vision, and for the idea or vision to be successful and sustainable as a product or service, it requires the support of a well-considered business framework. BusinessFit, since its inception in 2012, has been focused on helping business leaders ensure their ideas and vision are supported through quality assurance processes and controls that provide clarity in progression intentions and ensure legitimacy in value creation and in meeting legislative and governance requirements.

?Five-stage process

BusinessFit’s quality assurance and business and sustainability methodology follows a five-stage process which is coordinated through the BusinessFit app. The process helps business leaders and entrepreneurs along a journey to create a framework to support their organisation’s purpose and desired outcomes.

?Stage ONE: At the first stage in the quality assurance process, we help leaders clearly define and articulate their enterprise’s value creation for consumers, communities, society, and stakeholders. Through an online profile each enterprise defines its products and services, purpose, location, industry, B-BBEE status, trading hours, as well as shares web domain, individual and team photos and a video.

?Stage TWO: Focuses on foundational governance, which includes all aspects an enterprise is required to have in place to be regarded as a good corporate citizen. These include such items as tax clearance certificates, letters of good standing from workman’s compensation, Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) documents detailing enterprise registration confirmation and current directors. At this stage BusinessFit also ensures that compliance regarding annual financial returns to SARS are current, that practices around the Protection of Personal Information (POPI)Act are being adhered, as well as defining the enterprise’s specific target market, and informing existing and prospective client’s reasons they should engage with the enterprise.

?Stage THREE: Is about processes and assurance that outcomes are achievable within the enterprise’s guiding structures and foundation. This includes considerations in the enterprise’s achievements, training and competencies, operational and stakeholder commitments, as well as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) related activities and transformational goals.

?Stage FOUR: Is a Round Table Meeting where a professional business consultant meets with a business leader and follows a sustainability reporting process which includes four pillars and thirty-four action areas. The pillars are leadership, functional area foundations, measurements and engagement. Each pillar has eight action areas, from which a corrective action report is created. Once the enterprise has addressed any corrective action concerns it receives a ‘Business Fit’ status and is certified to trade as a compliant and ethically sound business.

?Stage FIVE: Is about testimony, where BusinessFit wants to hear from companies and customers that have used the enterprise’s services, and that their experience has been positive.

Quality assurance is the key differentiator in creating successful and sustainable businesses, but of course a wonderfully structured quality assurance plan is not enough on its own to guarantee meeting defined outcomes. A lot depends on the leader’s ability to clearly define the enterprise intentions, as well as providing confidence that the vision is achievable.

?Reaching intended outcomes

We work with leaders in helping them define the enterprise value creation, its financial sustainability model, and develop the culture needed to drive the organisation forward. We encourage a business minded approach and ensure there are defined milestones to guide the enterprise in reaching its intended outcome. Confidence is critical and as we know comes from having experience and know-how, having access to resources and reliable networks, and that leaders and staff are representing their authentic selves. Being authentic is also about understanding personal leadership styles and recognising the impact leaders have on the enterprise and other members in the team.

Functional foundations are made up of the activity groups which include marketing, operations, finance, systems, legal, human resources and other, and is where administrative, reporting and quality outputs are coordinated. To a large degree these activity groups are common in all enterprises. However, size and industry type do create their own unique variances. Newly set up enterprises often have centralised decision making, where the leader will likely be involved personally in all activities of the enterprise. Leadership style and involvement must change considerably as the business grows and should mature into defined role profiles and standard operating procedures, and then into outcome-based teamwork.

?Defining measurements and outcomes is essential, as success is the outcome of meeting an intentional aim. Without clearly defining where the enterprise is heading, there is little hope that any specific goal will be achieved. Measurements need to include operational quality outcomes, as well as meeting governance best practice outcomes and stakeholders hopes and expectations. Stakeholders include employees, customers, communities, suppliers, receiver of revenue, department of labour, and in fact any organisation, group or individual person being affected by the activities and output of the enterprise.

Engagement is perhaps the most important component of achieving success and is the result of attracting the right people to help guide the business along its intended path. People whose purpose aligns with that of the enterprise and leaders’ vision and feel a sense of purpose and commitment begin to enjoy their work and thrive in their roles. It is the leader’s responsibility to create an engaged and ethical work environment, and they do this by helping everyone to feel they belong, that their individual and team contributions are valuable, and ensuring the culture and intentions of the business support value creation.

?Business Foundation

Quality assurance is an essential component in ensuring an enterprise’s growth and prosperity. Quality assurance must become the foundation in a business and provide guidance and direction to each person in the organisation, as well as ensure governance standards and stakeholder expectations are maintained. Quality assurance processes are often not considered critical in start-up and small enterprises, and hence the high failure rates of enterprises that occur at this level.

?BusinessFit has recognised that quality assurance standards, when implemented correctly within an enterprise, significantly increases the enterprise’s ability to achieve success. Successful enterprises create sustainable employment, and as such, quality assurance and a well governance framework is essential in building thriving enterprises and support growing nations.

?To learn more about the BusinessFit quality assurance and sustainability development process, please contact David White [email protected]